I’ve had the most frustrating 4 hours trying to install SQL Server 2008.

It boils down to this: the sql installer has five bugs that stop you installing it properly. Now I’m not sure if most people have seen the SQL Server 2008 installer but it goes on and on checking pre-requisites and performing other tests yet completely and utterly FAILS when trying to do ANY type of install on Windows 2008 Server x64 when you’ve removed SQL Server 2005 beforehand.

I get the error message: “The INSTANCESHAREDWOWDIR command line value is not valid.”

…and I get it when I click next on this screen populated with default values:

These are the default values!

This problem seems to occur when you have removed SQL 2005 (which I had to do on our newly commissioned server from 1and1) and then try to install SQL 2008.

It turns out you need to over-ride one of the values passed into the installer – INSTALLEDSHAREDWOWDIR – yes, the error message is actually WRONG, there is no such parameter as INSTANCESHAREDWOWDIR (bug #1). So, set the INSTALLSHAREDWOWDIR parameter via the command-line. But don’t set it to “C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\”, because you already have the shared feature folder option set to “C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\” from the previous install and it won’t allow them to be the same. Even though it won’t let you change it…. (bug #2)

Now when you try and change the INSTALLSHAREDWOWDIR parameter via the command-line, it complains that you have not set the INSTANCESHAREDDIR parameter. But that parameter does not exist (bug #3), it means INSTALLSHAREDDIR even though a value for that is set in the dialog which it won’t let you change…..

So, you have to run the setup.exe from the command line like this:

setup /action=install /INSTALLSHAREDDIR="C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\\" /INSTALLSHAREDWOWDIR="C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Shared\\"

Let’s just skim over the crazy double back-slash escaping at the end by just stating that it is insane.

I have to point out that the parameter for INSTALLSHAREDDIR gets ignored anyway (bug #4), it still uses the default value in the image above but at least it stops moaning about it. I’ve set the shared folder to a new one of my own choosing because I have a bad feeling something else later on down the line is going to clash with it.

Once you have done this, you will get past that install screen that held me captive for 4 hours and be able to set the instance name. (Do yourself a favour, specify the instance name manually as MSSQLSERVER if you want it to be the default instance. That’s because the default instance option doesn’t work either. (bug #5))

This all left me in a position where we had paid for a server that should have been completely compatible with the configuration I needed but we simply could not install it. That’s not a nice feeling at all!

SQL 2008 – utterly, utterly, utterly CRAP installer.